So, you can’t trust induction, so just act as if you can. After all, what else are you going to do? — T Clark

That is the pragmatic position. The world seems to be ordinary, and we act accordingly. But a philosopher pauses and asks about rational truth. Pausing seems like a suspension of everyday action and pragmatism, the things to be done. There is a relationship between the philosopher's contemplation (pausing) and not following inductive everyday life, if one can say such a thing. Can it be said that philosophy has classically rejected this more fragile aspect of empiricism? Heidegger spoke of an authentic and inauthentic mode of existence. I believe there is a relationship between philosophical thinking, rejecting everyday life and this authenticity, but it is not yet very clear to me.

If you believe as Hume does that constant conjunction has little or nothing to do with necessary connection, then belief in the necessary connection between two constantly conjoined things, is fancy, or practical for now, or whatever else you want to believe about it. It’s not actually true or actually legitimate. — Fire Ologist

It is surprising to me that we can survive with these kinds of beliefs that are imposed on us most of the time. Of course, this is assuming that truth is subsumed by reason. We are beings who live in constant ignorance of truth and reality. I would say that these beliefs work on a practical level, but I wonder how they can work at all. It seems that another belief underpins legitimacy: that the external world is regular. But we are back where we started, as this belief is also illegitimate.

Thank you for the references. I will take a look to see if I can find something that suits me.

I'm not sure what you mean in this context. Previously I suggested just describing the conditions rather than attributing causality. Is that the same thing you are talking about. — T Clark

It has nothing to do with that. In fact, what I am talking about hardly has anything to do with the issue of causality. It is simply to express the inadequacy of causality as it is classically understood (linear, regular, general, proportional, etc.) with respect to the irreducible novelty of becoming. In my view, you are looking for a theory that continues to subsume the case to the generality of a law and its universals. I am also looking for a better law or principle that accounts for the production of the singular, which is neither particular nor universal, neither general nor specific.

I have taken a look at it and I do not see the connection with what I have said. Probability imitates reality through similarity and subsumes it into the predictable. What I am talking about is very different from the predictable; it is something that cannot be predicted and consists of the production of the real as a unique, unrepeatable event. This is related to the nature of time, in which each moment is absolutely unique.

Something that interests me greatly is the singularity of the effect that cannot be reduced. Its irreducible novelty with respect to regularity (same causes, same effects) which similarity is its condition. The central question, for me, is how singularity occurs, rather than a theory of the regularities of nature (causality as regularity), which for me remains an abstraction from the real production of becoming as singularity. Classical theorie of causality cannot account for the singular (that which is neither particular nor universal but a difference and novelty).

For me, reducing philosophy to the "why" is a simplification. But there is something interesting implicit in what you have said. To say why the "why" is important is to say that in order to do justice to philosophy in terms of its goal and purpose, you must do more philosophy. For example, my idea of what philosophy is (the discovery of problems) is linked to the ontology I adhere to (the virtual, the problematic and the actual). This is why different philosophers, according to their own philosophy, have different ideas about what philosophy is and what it is for. There is no single answer to what philosophy is; it depends on the philosophy from which you position yourself. In other words, meta-philosophy is philosophical in itself.

For me, philosophy consists of discovering problems. A problem is discovered in the unthought-of relationships between objects, situations, beliefs, systems of thought, etc., about which concepts are invented. This can be done in a profound or superficial way. But the more profound the philosophy, the more problematic it is. Philosophers train themselves by reading other authors in order to discover problems that require an updating of the virtual. The problem of justice encompasses subjects, social relations, legislation, ethics, and morals, all of which establish virtual relationships with each other that the philosopher must shape and update into new concepts that make you think differently through new concepts.

Do all fall under the umbrella of thoughts? — Patterner

It is difficult to answer that question. We would have to define what a thought is. In my view, a thought is a relationship with an idea where the idea is actualised, but the idea is a diffuse problem, so the thought does not represent the idea. If we think of something as simple as a football, the thought extends to consider football as a sport, the players, how a ball is thrown, how it is kicked, a whole context that nevertheless remains virtual, waiting to be actualised as the thought progresses in its determinations. Thought is that mental phenomenon such as an image, a notion, a concept that is constantly being determined. But the important thing is that this is not a representation of something outside the mind. A football does not represent the kick or the throw; both are a virtual objective that happens to the ball and is determined as a concept in our thinking.

Now think about it the other way : I take a walk in the woods. Does that affect, say, the orbit of Jupiter? Let's think about one of the countless human actions. Since there are so many, shouldn't they alter the orbit of Jupiter?

I call causality a metaphysical principle. Is that what you mean by "epistemic construct?" — T Clark

No. I mean, is the discontinuity in the chain of causality something that we simply draw subjectively so that we do not have to go to infinity, or is it something objective in the world, that there is actually a type of discontinuity in the causality of the world that explains why we explain some things better with a specific causality and not with just any causality?

I think you're talking about the same thing I was when I discussed the idea of cause only being useful when we can separate the events in question from their surrounding environment. — T Clark

The question is: when we separate the events in question from their surrounding environment, is it simply an epistemic construct or is there really an objective kind of disconnect?

It is only because the ball encountered both friction and a gravitational field that it was caused to instead curve — apokrisis

I do not deny that this is related. But I wonder: how far should we extend our view in casual relationships? If it is true that the movement of the stars does not explain why the ball fell to the ground from the fifth floor, it follows that there is a kind of causal disconnection. In that sense, one might say: there is continuity and there is causal discontinuity. This reminds me of Plato's concept of symploke.

Is everything causally connected to everything else? If I throw a ball from the fifth floor, I know that the cause of the ball falling is because I threw it. And I don't have to look for the cause in, say, the movements of the stars. So it seems that not everything is causally connected to everything else. There are limits to causal influence.

But is it not so much more complex than this? Why is a marble a marble and a pebble a pebble? Or for that matter, a stone a stone, and a ball of dough a ball of dough. They're all similar, aren't they? — Outlander

A classic way is to play with the object by adding or removing properties until you find the essence of the object. Like a triangle: by removing or adding an angle, suddenly the object becomes something else, a square, and then you realise that a triangle is an object with only three angles. Then you have a general and universal concept or idea that subsumes the particulars. Another way is to make some colours "pass through a convergent lens, bringing them to a single point," in which case a "pure white light" is obtained that "makes the differences between the shades stand out." This second case, on the contrary, defines a differential Idea: the different colours are no longer objects under a concept, but constitute an order of mixture in coexistence and succession within the Idea; the relation between the Idea and a given colour is not one of subsumption, but one of actualisation and differentiation; and the state of difference between the concept and the object is internalised in the Idea itself, so that the concept itself has become the object. White light is still a universal, but it is a concrete universal, and not a genus or generality.

The world perceived by a mind has an external cause that may be of a different nature from the mind (classical dualism).

The mind-created world, as I understand the OP, has no external cause and is a monism where everything that exists has mental properties.

Any simple object. A marble. Right now you have the idea of a marble in your head. What is the nature of that idea? What is it, so to speak, made of? — Patterner

It is difficult to think about what an idea is made of. According to Platonic tradition, an idea is a sui generis and eternal element, but external to the subject who accesses it. But I do not know if it is legitimate to ask what it is made of. It is like asking what the smallest thing in physics is made of. They are sui generis things.

From my point of view, when we think of a marble, we do not think of an idea. We have a concept, a notion, or an image. But the idea is something external and virtual, constituted by external relationships and encounters. They are immaterial, and cannot be broken down as we break down an atom, for example.

Or is there a difference between thoughts and ideas? Are there thoughts that aren't ideas? — Patterner

If you are an objective idealist like Plato, ideas are something external to the subject, and thought simply access to these ideas.

From my point of view, ideas are the objective relationality that takes concrete form in thought. For example, the idea of justice involves human beings, relationships between them, coexistence between them, duties, power and legislation. These things are objectively related, and the subject perceives them as a problem that is decided in the concept. For example, distributive justice is the concretisation in the subject of these virtual relationships.

We would then need a machine capable of writing (not just reading) to your brain using your specific encoding. Now, when i look at an image, you would see and experience everything i see. — punos

That's not a good answer. It doesn't address the issue of decomposition or methodology. A good answer would be: We can actually see neural processes first-person, and not only that, but methodologically we have discovered how to create consciousness without needing to be conscious ourselves as a necessary evidence.

I don't know what you're asking here. Perhaps you can rephrase it? — punos

In our experience, we do not see the neural processes that would compose the glass of water. This points to an irreducible qualitative difference. Because if we try to break down the glass of water, we do not obtain those neural processes.

Experience is a stream of information — punos

"So we have to differentiate between information and experience (Mary's room then). Because you're not seeing the experience, but rather a reconstruction in a monitor, in a flat screen. A few pixels, but the experience isn't made up of pixels. It is a translation from something to something totally different."


The information is arranged on a substrate in which the experience cannot be broken down without losing what we call experience (when we see a glass of water, we do not see the neurons acting). It is like when we say that experience is nothing more than neural synapses. But methodologically, we have a one-way path: the association from experience to neural processes, but not a return path: from processes to experience.

In fact, this is confirmed in the video you brought: we FIRST have evidence of what experience is, and then we adjust the monitor so that the electrical signals resemble what we see in experience. But we can translate those signals into anything, not necessary into an image on a monitor. This raises a question: could we reconstruct experience in a physical way without first knowing what experience is (not seeing neurons, neither electrical signals, just a glass of water) and what it resembles? The answer is no.

All mental events are private. No one is aware of what other mental beings are having in their minds.
If AI can think, then we are not supposed to know about it. We can only guess if someone or being is thinking by their actions and words they are taking and speaking in proper manner for the situation or not. — Corvus

Exactly. But behaviours and words can be repeated by a robot without consciousness. In that sense, all we can know is that a robot acts AS IF it were conscious. But that knowledge is not enough to know that it has consciousness.

That's fine, but my original response was about finding an image in the brain, not about the experience of the image. — punos

To avoid misunderstandings, what do you think about the idea of finding the "living experience" in the brain? The fact that you can transfer neural information to a screen and construct an image says it all. When you see those images on the monitor that "reconstructs" them, you are not experiencing what is supposedly being reconstructed. In fact, the word reconstruction is misleading. I prefer to say objectifying what is subjective, but then something is lost, something that is no longer on the monitor. Basically, everything is lost; the experience itself is lost.

Now, when i look at an image, you would see and experience everything i see. Do you see? — punos

Not at all. Because each person will experience it differently, due to their uniqueness.

The brain does not store information, such as an image, in the same modality in which it was received. You are not going to find an actual image in the brain. What you will find, however, is information — punos

Ok. So we have to differentiate between information and experience (Mary's room then). Because you're not seeing the experience, but rather a reconstruction in a monitor, in a flat screen. A few pixels, but the experience isn't made up of pixels. It is a translation from something to something totally different.

The answer is no. What I "observe" is a recreation of images on a device other than the brain, but your are not looking the brain and finding those images.

Anyway, I think the key to the Nature of Ideas is to view them as Abstractions from Concrete Reality — Gnomon

I disagree. An abstraction leaves us with something general and something specific. And their relationship is one of similarity. I consider, on the other hand, following Deleuze, that an idea is a virtual set of relationships and powers that revolve around a nucleus. For example, the Idea of colour is a system of relationships of intensity, light and vibration which, when actualised in a body or object, produces a multiplicity of concrete colours. The Idea is the network of relationships, not the final object. We create the concept of red as a result of this network of relationships and potentials. But the concept of red no longer represents anything neither is something specific to something general. The idea is the relational that creates something concrete. In this sense an idea is something objective and virtual.

That doesn’t mean that the emergent phenomenon can be predicted, constructed, or deduced from the principles of the lower level of organization. — T Clark

If so, then I do not understand what the concept of emergency introduces that helps us understand the phenomenon of experience.

That seems obviously false to me. Can you provide some evidence? — T Clark

It follows from our methodological approach. We start from experience as something given and from there we establish relationships with the neurological, but imagine that we know nothing about consciousness and experience, that we are robots; how would we deduce that a being has experiences?

Mind emerges out of neurology. — T Clark

But how?

An explanation is needed that can account for the phenomena we call mental or conscious. For example, I see a glass of water. What is the neurological configuration from which we can deduce the glass of water as a conscious experience? Can we go inside the brain, see the neurons, and find the image of a glass like a movie and a proyector? The answer is no.

The thing is, we could be beings without consciousness and without experience, and yet the neurological explanation would still persist and remain valid. We cannot deduce experience from neurological explanation. In that sense, methodologically, we always start from consciousness and experience as something given, and we try to explain their origin, but we can never do so in reverse. That is why the idea of emergence is not very useful to us here and lacks capacity of explanation.

The primary difference between a song and an idea is their origin. While a song can be represented and then experienced, an idea seems to emerge directly from experience and the ultimate dimension. An idea isn't a pre-existing entity that we stumble upon; it arises from a cognitive system, such as a brain, that processes and interconnects data. — Wayfarer

There seems to be a problem here: if the Idea arises directly from experience, it requires a kind of intuition of something objective (intellectual intuition), but contrary to intuitionism, you say that the idea arises from cognition, reasoning and data processing (data from the senses?).

The question is: do we access a layer of ideas through a faculty (intellectual intuition) or do we simply create them based on cognition and reasoning?

To what extent is thought an aspect beyond the experience of thought in lived experience, or some independent criteria of ideas and knowledge? — Jack Cummins

Thought is an activity of the subject. Ideas are those that transcend it. There is a virtual field of ideas that exceeds the subject, allowing the subject to learn and transmit them. Ideas are related to other ideas. As I have said, an AI does not question the idea of freedom, but when we question the idea of freedom, we enter a field that is not our own. The idea forces us to think about it in a series of relationships with other ideas and concepts that are not present for the subject (we must investigate), and that may be elsewhere, in other minds, in books, or in the cloud itself.

In short, the idea transcends the subject; it transcends the act of thinking. AI can access the virtual field of ideas, but it cannot take the initiative, since thinking means actualising the idea for the here and now.

Following Deleuze, I believe that an idea is an objective problematic field accessed by the subject. It is not an answer to a problem. It is not a concept. It is the problematic that revolves around a meaningful core. The idea of justice, for example, beyond how we define it, moves within a virtual field of questions and relationships with other ideas. In this sense, the thinking subject actualises by thinking about a meaningful core on which the problematic is established.


Can an AI think?


Thinking is the act of choosing and establishing the meaningful core around which an entire problematic field revolves like a galaxy. An AI does not question the idea of justice. But it can access to a problematic field (namely the cloud). In this sense, humans think because they can decide where and when the problematic occurs. Whereas an AI cannot decide this. However, when we ask an AI something, it is capable of responding and giving us a series of ideas and concepts. In this sense, it conforms to our thinking. But without us deciding and establishing the problematic field, there is no thought.

In conclusion, AI does not think, but it can be part of human-directed thinking. It compose with us an apparatus of thinking.

We did communicate something. With the use of signs. — Patterner

That depends on what we mean by "communicate". I claim that this communication consists solely of provoking significant effects from one person to another. In other words, through signs we provoke something in the other person's understanding. But nothing is transmitted. What we provoke is meaning, or information.

Still, I had information in my mind, I wanted it in your mind, I took actions that I hoped would accomplish that goal, coding that information in the medium we are using to communicate, and that information is now in your mind. It's still the same information, but it changed form.

All the information in anybody's DNA can be written down in the book, or entered into a computer. Again, it's the same information, but in different form. — Patterner

From my point of view, nothing is encoded as if we were locking a door with a key. What we call encoding is choosing a VERY SPECIFIC, unique series of signs that will have an effect on us or a machine. Signs that other people may not know, which is what makes encoding purpose. But the relationship is the same: one person utters signs and these have meaningful effects on another person. Here, meaning refers to the creation of something that did not exist before. A "Hello" appears in us as the creative effect of the series of signs we have heard.

But you are right. There is no substance, not even ghost-like, that crosses over. I guess proof if that is when the receiver gets wrong information. Thinking I meant one thing when I meant another. That happens when you incorrectly interpret my signs. It wouldn't be possible if there was a substance going from my mind to yours. (A scenario that sounds like a fantasy/scifi story, and would lead to horrible manipulation.) — Patterner

Exactly.

I don't dispute the continuity between the measuring device and the physical world being measured. Both are part of the given world. — Metaphysician Undercover

The measuring device and that which is measured enter into a teleological operational dynamic. Here, it is the act of measuring. That is why neither can be excluded from the non-given of the world. This is even more so when things in quantum physics are decided from one moment to the next with the intervention of the measuring device.

How can you say this? The reality of what you refer to as "the measuring apparatus and that which is measured" is supported by their existence in the past, and sense observation of them, in the past. — Metaphysician Undercover

I can say this because it is essential for their participation in scientific practice that the world is not given once and for all. The creation of the entire experiment depends on it. Experimenting implies a relationship with the future, and so we create the conditions for an experiment just as we create a measuring device.

Yes, think about the translation of a philosophical work from one language to another. The signifiers are different, but the idea can be ''transmitted'' from one language to another.

An idea is the meaningful core of a series of signifiers. And its nature is transcendence.

Our intentional acts, as they are thrown into the possible and the non-given of the world, imply operationally a continuity between the measuring apparatus and that which is measured. For, after all, to act in a non-given world is to act in relation to something other than the presence of the present and the present of consciousness. There is, then, a relationship between our operational actions and the non-given of the world. That is, because non-consciousness is involved in operativity, there is a continuity between the measuring apparatus and that which is measured. This continuity is therefore beyond consciousness, just as the future is beyond the present (which is the form of consciousness). And our intentional acts such as "measuring" are also thrown beyond consciousness and the presence of the present.

There is no place here to talk about the past, since conscious and intentional acts occur in relation to a possible future. There may be a discontinuity in time (I leave the question open), but there is no discontinuity between the measuring device, that which is measured, and our intentional-operational act. All three are beyond what is given to consciousness. That is why subjectivist interpretations of quantum physics are wrong. Measuring here is seen as an act that is thrown into the possible and the not-given for consciousness. It is no coincidence that operativity is closely related to the body, and that the body has long been conceived as the other of the mind and consciousness.

The non-given, the body, intentional acts (measuring), and non-consciousness are all intertwined.

I am a little disappointed with your response. You have simply reiterated what you already said, reaffirming your position but without providing any arguments against what I said.

In terms of composition, things do not improve. Imagine saying that the number pi is made up of hydrogen atoms. Or that the idea of justice is made up of the same atoms. These are categorical errors. If you talk about composition, you must necessarily talk about decomposition, and if we decompose the number pi and the idea of justice, we do not have atoms, we have more numbers (or ratios, circumferences and diameters) and more ideas (an idea is composed by more ideas).

It is said that a reduction by composition fails when the path of decomposition fails and we do not have the components we thought we had in the first place. This happens with most of the knowledge we have (the entire set of sciences and disciplines). Ethical principles cannot be broken down into atoms without losing all the meaning of what a principle means. Hence, physicalism by composition is also erroneous.

Even physics is not entirely physics. Do not forget the mathematical part that composes it and gives it its scientific and exact status. And that is despite the fact that mathematics is supposed to be a higher level in terms of composition. So it would have to be said that the universe has an ideal-objective aspect (Plato's realm) - (or ideal-subjective if you think mathematics is all mental, that will be funny, to think the universe with mental properties), as does mathematics. In that sense, it must be said that physicalism by composition is false even in the case of the universe.

Example: chemical reactions can (in principle) be explained in terms of fundamental physics. Chemistry is concerned mainly with the structure and reactions of atoms and molecules. These structures and reactions are a consequence of the properties of their components. The study of those components, and their properties, is fundamental physics. I doubt that anyone suggests there's some ontological emergence occurring when molecules interact that is not due to the properties of the components (as studied by physics). This relationship can be described as "Chemistry is reducible to Physics". This relationship between chemistry and physics is uncontroversial. — Relativist

I am not referring to the physical/ chemical sciences, which are indeed reducible to each other. I am referring to the vast array of sciences and disciplines that we possess and which, nevertheless, are not reducible to the physical and chemical sciences. I have mentioned some of them, such as phenomenology, mathematics/geometry, logic, psychology, economics, aesthetics, etc.

Reduction would take place if we used, for example, the terms and concepts of physics to derive and explain laws, correlations, principles, theorems and so on from other sciences such as those I have mentioned.

This cannot be done. For example, you have concepts of speed, time, energy, mass, etc., and you have to use them to develop Pythagoras' theorem. It cannot be done. Therefore, there is no reduction. And physicalism has no place in science as a set of sciences. It could be said that physicalism is anti-scientific in this sense, since it does not respect the identity of many sciences and disciplines.

Now, you could argue that your intention is not to carry out that reduction but to establish that the properties of the world described by other sciences are emergent properties. But then emergence is not explanatory, and physicalism has no explanatory power. And if it has no explanatory power, then I don't know why anyone would choose physicalism as a general ontology of the world.

Chemistry provides a more useful explanation of interactions between atoms and molecules associated with chemical bonds than quantum field theory. Biology is the more useful means of understanding physiology and disease than quantum chemistry. In all these cases, this does not imply that reductionism is false. — Relativist

I don't think you fully understand what a reduction means. What do you understand by reduction in any case?

Yes. But we must keep in mind that physicalists have chosen a couple of sciences (in this case, physics and chemistry) from which they seek to derive, reduce, or explain everything else. We must be very attentive to how things are derived and ask ourselves if there really is a valid explanation and reduction of the world to specific categories and concepts from specific sciences.

I believe that this cannot be done without losing the operability of the other sciences (or disciplines) that describe the world. Imagine that in mathematics there is a reduction to physics and you have concepts of speed, time, energy, mass, etc., and you have to use them to develop Pythagoras' theorem. You can't!

Can any of the physical-chemical sciences explain the intentionality of consciousness or explain what a noema is better than phenomenology? Or the Pythagorean theorem better than geometry? Or what a universal better than philosophy? Or what is beauty better than aesthetics? Or what is a correct argument better than logic? Or how prices functions better than economy? Or what is a morphema better than linguistics?

For me, there are several categories in the world that are irreducible to one another.